Making Friends With Recruit-A-Friend

Patch 5.0.4 was a bit of a bust for me. I think I’ve played my mains for all of ten minutes since it was released. Pretty much just long enough to swap around some glyphs, add a few talents, and sit in front of a training dummy to see just how much better (or worse) my toons were. I did try to get ambitious and take the Warrior (rocking the Arms spec) through an HoT and didn’t completely embarrass myself. That was about all the action that happened on the level 85 scene.

No, since 5.0 I’ve been forsaking my big guns in favor of playing Recruit-A-Friend. By myself. This means I’m only technically playing with myself.

So why, WHY with all the changes of patch 5.0 would I start a RAF account for just over three weeks before Mists of Pandaria is released? I’ll say there’s three reasons.

1) The sweet ride.

One of the perks the referring account gets in the RAF program is an in-game mount. Back in the old days, there was the unicorn zebra – the Swift Zhevra

Then, once Wrath of the Lich King came along, the horny zebra was dismissed and replaced with a flying mount – the X-53 Touring Rocket. This mount was unique at the time because it allowed you to carry a passenger with you.

Finally, with the upcoming Mists of Pandaria, the rocket was scrapped. Bring on the Obsidian Nightwing. Now what makes this ride the sweetest of the lot is that, not only can you carry a passenger, but YOU TURN INTO THE MOUNT! So yes, your buddy is riding you. He’d better be a good friend. If not, he will be after taking you for a spin around the block a few times.

2) Filling up those ten/eleven character slots.

Let’s say that you want to start a Death Knight on a new server. Well you’d better have a level 55 character on that RAF account or it’s not happening, bucko! I made a team of Hunters and leveled them both up to 55. This allowed me to create a DK on the RAF account (because I’d purchased WotLK on it). That’s a whole bunch of anagrams, or something.

Now what would I do with another character? Well I could use him as a bank alt, an optional character to level up in the future, someone to farm up low level mats to sell, or someone to park at a neutral AH if I want to ship goods between Alliance and Horde (Editor’s Note — Disregard the black market fool’s ramblings for he knows not what he speaks).

The bottom line is that no character is useless.

Well, almost no character.

3) Throwing levels away.

I’ll try and explain the math on this one. For every two levels a character on the RAF account gains, he can give one level to a character on the referring account up to the RAF character’s level. Example: A level 60 RAF toon can give up to 30 levels to a character on the referring account, as long as it doesn’t increase the referred character’s level beyond the RAF character’s level of 60. So if the referring character was level 40 to start, he’d only be able to have 20 levels gifted to him. Makes sense? No? Screw you then. Math is hard.

The bottom line is that I’ll be able to powerlevel a new Monk or Pandaren character and avoid the leveling crowds. Mad sweet.

Who wouldn’t want to give this cute little guy a bunch of levels?

This is my strategy leading into MoP. How are you preparing for Mists?